Rings (2017) Review!!!

Synopsis – A young woman finds herself on the receiving end of a terrifying curse that threatens to take her life in seven days.

My Take – Seven days! This was a simple phrase that struck terror in our hearts so many years ago. Certainly, you know I’m talking of The Ring, the horror film about a death delivering video tape that would kill you seven days after you watched it. The story of people dying after watching the strange images on a mysterious videotape was first told in a trilogy of books by Japanese author Koji Suzuki in the 1990s. The first novel in ‘The Ring Trilogy’ was published in 1991. In Japan, it inspired two manga adaptations, a 1995 film (“Ring: Kanzenban“), a TV series (“Ring: The Final Chapter“), another film version (1998’s “Ring“, also known as “Ringu“) and a sequel (1999’s “Ringu 2“), followed by two remakes of the 1998 film, one from South Korea (“The Ring Virus” in 1999) and the other from the U.S. (“The Ring” in 2002). The American version made over five times what it cost so and was received quite well critically, naturally, there was a sequel, however, like most sequels (even with the original Japanese director at its helm), the film earned half of its predecessor & earned quite a backslash from fans and critics alike, thereby placing the ‘Ring’ franchise on hold, at least for the English speaking audience. Now, twelve years later, following the shockingly mediocre sequel, we get another sequel that nobody really asked for which itself has had a bumpy ride to reach our theatres. The film was scheduled for release in fall of 2014, gets put off for 6 months, then another 6. Finally in the end of 15 we were given a Halloween date which was bumped ahead another 6 months. The film which finally released this past weekend is not a distinguished moment in the illustrious history of Paramount Pictures, or any of the film’s other participants, it’s actually quite the opposite. Sure, the film was better than it had any right to be (in comparison to a certain The Bye Bye Man), but it didn’t try to do anything new. I minutely enjoyed the certain mystery aspect of the film, which even though eventually went down a predictable route, yet the highlight worse part of the film was its failure in the horror department. Unlike its predecessors the film contains no shock value just the standard old fake jump scares which also come in sparse quantity. It also seems the makers of this third installment have forgotten than an origin of their vengeful specter has already been told and the supposed rules of Samara’s curse need maybe a refresher at most. Yet given the fact this film simultaneously ups stakes and downplays expectations by placing the curse in the modern world of internet & mobile phones, I have to ask, what are we supposed to be looking at: a reboot? A sequel? A spin off? I am not yet sure! All I can say is that for the most part the film is just hackneyed, predictable, and topped with uninteresting characters. But a true recipe for disaster is an unpleasant amalgamation of the aforementioned faults with the cardinal sin of any type of film: being boring.

The story follows Julia (Matilda Lutz) and Holt (Alex Roe), two teenagers in love, who are about to find themselves deep in a well of malevolence. Holt is heading off to college, while Julia stays back in their hometown to take care of her ailing mother. Texts, phone calls and Skype sessions keep the relationship going, until Holt suddenly and inexplicably stops answering Julia’s calls. Desperate, Julia jumps in her car and drives to Holt’s college where he is nowhere to be found and where those who know him either don’t know where he is or won’t say. Julia knows that Holt has been getting extra credit by working on a project for Gabriel, his practical biology professor Gabriel (Johnny Galecki), but the professor denies knowing who Holt is, so Julia follows him to another floor of the classroom building to see what’s up. She finds herself in a room full of students, video screens and digital clocks which are labeled with various students’ names and which are counting down from various points in time. Julia follows a panicked student named Skye (Aimee Teegarden). Skye admits that she knows where Holt is but, before explaining further says, “I have to show you something first”. Skye takes Julia home and Julia sees texts from Holt on Skye’s phone. Julia learns about the cursed video and that Holt watched it – almost exactly seven full days earlier – so she watches it in order to save Holt, which starts her own proverbial clock ticking. But the video Julia sees is a little different from the previous versions. There are even more disturbing, surreal and seemingly random images in Julia’s video – and her experience is different from everyone else’s. With Holt’s help, Julia follows the clues in her video and the visions that she starts seeing so she can unravel the mystery, save her own life and maybe finally find the spirit of Samara (Bonnie Morgan) some peace. The plot is redundant in a formulaic concept. Even though, the catch about the series was the story line was always pretty thin, yet it never mattered as there was enough imagination floating around the production team to create an atmosphere of unease, characters you care about and exciting situations and guess what? This F. Javier Gutiérrez directed film has none of these things. Of course, it brings back the old routine with some good effects – oily black water, upwards rain, the child-voice whispering ‘7 days,’ and but these brief moments exist in isolation. Updating the story for a new decade means that, rather on VHS tape, the deadly video at the center of the story is now being stored as a digital file and is viewable on a variety of devices, making the clip all the more ubiquitous – and dangerous. Remaining the same, however, is the origin of the video (a murdered girl named Samara reaching out for vengeance from beyond the grave) plus the way in which the video’s curse is carried forward. In an attempt to bring the 2017 viewer up to speed, the film opens with a scene on an airplane flight during which a Carter (Zach Roerig of The Vampire Diaries) explains his nervousness to his stranger co-passenger, Faith (Laura Wiggins of Shameless) by explaining, just as the plane is about to land, that he only has to “make it” through a few more minutes. For an opening scene this could have been really cool, but it just fails to deliver the scares and is a little too over the top, especially for a beginning, plus it is not really connected to the main plot either. In my opinion, the main problem that every film in the Ring Series (2002-Present) was that it had to find a second act that engaged. The concept all but requires the main source of fright and threat to bookend a narrative dead zone whereby victims anxiously await their fates.

The Ring (2002) accomplished this with an engaging mystery. The characters were given a clear time clock, elevated stakes and clues within the cursed video to give the audience something to play with. This third installment attempts the same thing, but since the audience should have some context (again it’s been twelve years), we’re all just twiddling our thumbs waiting for the characters to catch up. The mystery is a slightly different take on the curse (it’s also a slightly different video), but it hardly justifies this airless, soulless cash grab. Especially since the Gothic atmosphere of the first is completely absent and all we’re left with to mull on is a late appearance by Vincent D’Onofrio, who gets to blind this time. While the film contains an abundance of bizarre images, there’s no cohesion, and even less comprehension. It’s that rare feature—a horror picture with no horror. The characters evoke not so much empathy and concern as annoyance and a feeling of vague irritation. This installment resorted to jump out scare moments, mainly trying to make you jump with sudden loud noises and hallucinations appearing from out of nowhere. Many of these moments weren’t well timed, and to be honest many of the objects just weren’t scary. Think of the first film and how creepy everything was, the unknown always teasing you until something sprung out of nowhere. All that was much diluted in this installment. Even though they finally show you how she kills her victims, the team didn’t quite make it as horrifying as I thought it would be. Even the enormously talented Vincent D’Onofrio, who continues to contribute with memorable performances (for example his turn in the recent remake of The Magnificent Seven or Netflix-Marvel’s Daredevil), fails to lift the film out of its malaise with his colorful supporting role as a blind cemetery caretaker. But at least D’Onofrio seems like he’s having a good time. The film’s publicity made a great deal out of casting actor Johnny Galecki, who also plays the amiable physicist on television’s enormously popular comedy series The Big Bang Theory, yet somehow is widely wasted here. Matilda Lutz does a terrific job of demonstrating that scared/curious/can’t look away emotion shared by Naomi Watts in the original. Alex Roe, Aimee Teegarden and Bonnie Morgan are alright. This film serves as more proof that if you’re going to wait awhile to make another continuation, at least show that the years kept in suspense were worth it. This was a lot like the recent Blair Witch film, which tried to bring in new ideas along with some new characters, but only this was stuck with a script that honestly would have been impossible to save even if Spielberg were directing. On the whole, ‘Rings’ is an unnecessary sequel that fails to do anything new with the franchise’s premise and barely delivers the expected scares.